E3 2016 – Meet Our Favorites

The annual Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3 as people usually call it, was held once more at Los Angeles Convention Center last week. Although we did hear a lot of rumors and leaks before the event, there was room for some surprises too. Here I’ve gathered a list of my personal favorites from press conferences and the expo itself. Well, at least a few of them anyways.

Obviously virtual reality was kind of a big theme, as we did get a release date for PS VR and a lot of games to go with it. Bethesda announced that Doom and Fallout 4 will be released for HTC Vive and Capcom presented Resident Evil 7 Biohazard to PlayStation VR– all seeing the light of day during the next year. On top of that we did see Batman Arkham and Final Fantasy XV themed VR experiences which are specially made to support the platform.

As the rumors around new consoles has been going wild for a while, it wasn’t a surprise Microsoft had some new hardware for us. The 4K capable Xbox One S should hit the stores quite soon, followed by 4,5 times more powerful ‘Project Scorpio‘ late next year. The S stands for slim, which is something Microsoft loves to do with the existing consoles. Scorpio however is an actual upgrade and offers significantly more power for someone into 4K gaming. Sony was on radio silence with it’s counterpart so this was pretty much a one man show.

And then there were games, lot’s of glorious games. I absolutely had to see the new demo for Final Fantasy XV which was looking oh so good. While I was at it, I gave a go for another Umbra powered game Deus Ex: Mankind Divided at the Microsoft booth. Turned out my sneaking skills are bit too rusty for my taste, but I’m so looking forward to work on it at August 23rd. There might have been some other Umbra related games too, but that’s another story for later time..

Hideo Kojima announced Death Stranding during Sony’s conference, with Norman Reedus as the main character. I have to say that was one of the weirdest and coolest thing I’ve seen in a while, and it definitely piqued my interest even though we didn’t see anything concrete other than the teaser trailer. We also saw gameplay from Horizon Zero Dawn and Dishonored 2. The latter is something I have been waiting for since I completed the first game, and this only made me want it more – it was great too see glimpses of the world I love so much. As for Horizon, I wasn’t impressed when it was announced last year but seeing actual gameplay made me interested. Looking forward to see how it turns out.

Did I mention the new God of War already? Sony was giving us some serious treats in the form of Nordic Kratos and his son – and we did see actual gameplay footage too. Now, he might have gone through a cosmetic transformation, but all the action and brutal combat was there in a completely new setting which reminded me of home. You know.. Snow, a lot of trees and wildlife and epic viking-like beings fighting with demons and other nasty creatures.

And speaking of Nordic vibes.. I know I was joking around a week before E3 when the Skyrim Remaster rumors surfaced, but I actually got to do my victory dance I promised to do. I know some consider remasters quite boring, but I also got excited when Crash Bandicoot was announced to hit PlayStation 4 – I’m happy to go back to these favorites of mine.

So, I’m only gonna share one video you absolutely have to see. Our buddies at Redlynx had some great stuff coming out and they sure did present it the proper Finnish way! This Trials-fan is looking forward to the game for sure.